In countries that have developed separate special education systems, whether in segregated settings or ‘included’ in mainstream, racial, ethnic and immigrant minorities have always been over-represented. In England the disproportionate representation of minority students in special education continues to be an issue, with academic analyses attempting to disaggregate those regarded as falling within some twelve categories of special educational need (SEN) from their socio-economic status and gender and their ethnicity, and also offering a variety of explanations for any over representation. Black Caribbean students are over-represented in the categories of mild learning difficulty (MLD) and in the category of behavioural, social and emotional difficulties (BESD). This paper reviews the history of the over-placement of Black Caribbean students from the 1960s, in schools for the ‘educationally subnormal’, for emotional and behavioural difficulties, and in straight school exclusions. It uses data from recent analyses (Strand 2012) of over-representation, and notes some of the current explanations. It asserts that making sense of what is happening to these students requires a study of the historical and political contexts in which racial minority students have been incorporated into education systems initially designed for white majorities.